Five Patterns Leading To An Impending Revenue Miss

InnovationFive Patterns Leading To An Impending Revenue MissByStu Sjouwerman,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)Jun 09, 2026, 06:15am EDTStu Sjouwerman is co-founder and CEO of ReadingMinds, a pioneering AI-moderated interview platform for conducting sentiment analysis. getty​Here’s the typical pattern you’ll see in B2B boardrooms in businesses of all types and sizes. The quarter is coming to an end. The board convenes to review the sales forecasts. They look promising.Then, a week to 10 days later, everything falls apart. Deals slip or fail to materialize. Sales lag. Returns spike. The revenue target is missed, and everyone is caught by surprise. The Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) is asked to resign and a new CRO is brought in.Eighteen months later, the cycle repeats. This isn’t simply bad luck. It’s a governance failure that most boards overlook because they’re looking for clues in the wrong places. Leading Vs. Lagging IndicatorsBoard reporting tends to be thorough, but it’s backward-looking. Quarterly numbers, EBITDA, gross margins, headcount versus plan. These are certainly legitimate metrics, but they’re lagging indicators. They reflect the results of decisions that were made two quarters ago.By the time the numbers reveal a problem, the pipeline that produced them has already moved on. Boards see healthy numbers right up until the moment the quarter closes short.The pipeline looked fine. What wasn’t being monitored, though, were the leading indicators that could have hinted at problems down the road. Leading indicators, like conversion rates at each stage of the buyer’s journey, can provide an important early indication of what the pipeline is likely to look like when quarterly numbers are being reviewed. A board that monitors only aggregate revenue outcomes doesn’t have revenue oversight. It has revenue...